Nothing funny about Abbott’s laughable lines

Perhaps three years on, Abbott might care to make a ministerial statement describing the progress that has been made in these areas. This will assist taxpayers and voters to make judgments about how effective the government has been in the discharge of its responsibilities.

High-profile summits, grandstanding politicians and bouts of public indignation will come and go, but the complex problems of troubled remote communities will remain.

The futile search for magic wands and silver bullets must be abandoned. The solution lies in the sort of slow, unglamorous policy development work which isn’t conducive to screaming headlines.

Indigenous Australians must play a key role. All jokes aside, if we haven’t learnt that, then we haven’t learnt anything.